SCIENCE AND CULTURE

Sentient architecture promises insight into ourevolving relationship with AICarolyn Beans, Science Writer

As the sun set on April 11, 2018, around 400 peoplegathered in Indiana University’s Luddy Hall, anticipat-ing a sort of birth. There, in the home of the School ofInformatics, Computing, and Engineering, all eyespointed to Amatria, a woven cloud of white Mylarand clear acrylic plastics, wire, glass, laser-cut stain-less steel, and electronics hanging from the glassceiling.

This new work of “sentient architecture” by multi-disciplinary researcher and artist Philip Beesley of theUniversity of Waterloo and colleagues hung still. ThenBeesley reached up. Sensing his movement, Amatriashuddered. Vibrations near Beesley’s hand rippledoutward accompanied by bursts of warm light andsounds ranging from otherworldly clinks and bellowsto natural gurgles and hisses.

Amatria is at once art installation, architectural pro-totype, and test bed for artificial intelligence. Beesleycreated the sculpture in collaboration with re-searchers at Indiana University, as well as electricalengineer Rob Gorbet of the University of Waterlooand other members of Beesley’s Living ArchitectureSystems group (LAS), which includes an interna-tional team of 90 architects, scientists, engineers, andsound artists.

The goal of the LAS group is to make buildingscome alive, revolutionizing built spaces and ourrelationships with them. The group aspires to createan architectural structure that is more integrated withthe natural world, a metabolism that enables self-renewal, and an artificial intelligence capable of curios-ity and even empathy.

Amatria, a new work of “sentient architecture” by Philip Beesley and others in LAS, is at once art installation,architectural prototype, and test bed for artificial intelligence. Image courtesy of Philip Beesley (photographer).

Published under the PNAS license.

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LAS has exhibited more than 50 installationsaround the world. But Amatria is unique in that it func-tions as a permanent test bed in an academic commu-nity where it can evolve. As researchers collaborate withthe sculpture’s creators to add components and adjustAmatria’s code, they and visitors will work throughmany questions: How close can Amatria come to be-having like an actual living thing? And what does thepiece suggest about our relationship with the artificiallyintelligent spaces we inhabit now and in years to come?

Curious MachineOnce Beesley animated Amatria, others began clap-ping and waving to draw their own responses. In someways, this interaction is familiar. “The control systemsthat are being developed here can be understood asthe next generation of active controls that have beenwith us since the first shopping center door opened infront of us,” says Beesley. The difference is that Amatrianot only responds but is driven to learn.

Amatria will soon be endowed with an artificialintelligence called the curiosity-based learning algo-rithm (CBLA). The algorithm will drive Amatria tosearch for examples of new behavior from itself andfrom people as they react with the sculpture’s actua-tors, which generate light, sound, and vibrations.Starting in the fall, if a human responds to a particularactuator the same way every time, then the sculpture

should learn that response and come to “expect” it.The sculpture may then experiment with other actua-tors where other people are present. With additionalsensors and a more developed CBLA, an even moretailored response may be possible.

Katy Börner, an Indiana University engineering andinformation science professor, expects the piece toevolve over time. “If Amatria has seen me come up thestairs many times in the morning,” says Börner, alludingto the sculpture’s future capabilities, “she is not goingto take much attention away from other things she isinterested in.” Börner, whowas instrumental in bringingAmatria to the school, prefers to refer to the sculptureas “she.”

Modern-Day Quilting BeeBeesley describes the sculpture’s assembly with thetechnical skill of a scientist and the ease of a poet. Histeam, he explains, chained together vinegar cells—simple batteries that use vinegar as an electrolyte forconducting electricity. These vessels, which last about3 months, will constantly stimulate Amatria with aweak electrical current, an energy that Beesley says isakin to “the impulse that creates breathing” or “theswell of the ocean.”

Amatria would not be possible, he says, withoutnot only sophisticated technology but a great manyhuman hands. About 60 volunteers from the Bloo-mington community and schools across the university,as well as about 60 more volunteers back in Toronto,helped form and assemble the sculpture’s nearly half amillion parts in what Beesley likens to a quilting bee.“[Amatria] started out just packages of tiny, tinypieces,” says Sara Laughlin, a retired librarian whovolunteered. “I love the fact that it is very organic,”she says, alluding to the sculpture’s form, which re-minds her of underwater sea creatures. “And yet it isnot at all organic. It is all plastic and electronic parts.”

Much of Amatria was laser cut or 3D printed but stillrequired a human touch. “I didn’t expect something asintricate as this just from looking at little parts,” saysSarah Lloyd, a freshman in the media program whohelped cut out some of the 3D-printed pieces. Many ofthe clear plastic acrylic components started out as flat,laser-cut pieces, shaped like snowflakes cut from paper.Volunteers heated them in small ovens and then pulledthe softened plastic up from the centers, transformingthem into miniature latticed towers that function asstructural components for the piece.

Ingredients of LifeThe many pieces of Amatria form three main compo-nents—compartment, information, and metabolism—

that Beesley says correspond to the “minimumingredients of life.”

The “compartment” gives the sculpture its shapeand texture. White feathers cut fromMylar hang belowthe latticed acrylic towers, reinforced in places withstainless steel. The team optimized the geometric pat-terns of the towers to form minimal waste while stillproviding resilient, yet lightweight support. “It looks likeyou’re inside of a neural network or a cell,” says David

Nathanael Scheffler, part of the University of Waterloo’sLiving Architecture Systems group, was one of manystudents who helped piece together Amatria’s nearlyhalf a million parts. Image courtesy of Andreas Bueckle(photographer).

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Ebbinghouse, a local artist and alumnus of the school’sundergraduate fine arts program, who also volunteered.

Amatria’s artificial intelligence fulfills the “information”component. The sculpture senses its surroundingsthrough a series of smart microphones, which recordthe pitch and amplitude of sounds, as well as infraredsensors, which detect movement. Amatria also hasinternal microphones and electrical current sensorsthat give it feedback about its own actions and sup-port its ability to learn. Microprocessors process inputfrom the sensors and trigger actuators to respond bylighting bulbs, pumping sound through speakers, andgenerating vibrations with tiny motors.

Amatria’s “metabolism” is the least developed ofthe three components. Clear glass vessels hold, forexample, copper and potassium salts that combineover time under osmotic pressure to form spherical,aqueous vesicles known as Traube cells that float be-tween layers of heavier-than-water oil and lighter-than-water oil. Beesley and colleagues hope thatthese same sorts of cells could one day be used toform a self-renewing protective layer that clothes theoutside of a building like ivy, possibly even playing arole in carbon capture and air filtering.

“Philip is constantly revising his systems to makethem closer to living things,” says neuroscientist MarkCohen of the University of California, Los Angeles.During the conception of Amatria, Cohen contributedto the team’s discussions of how the sculpture couldmirror biological systems, such as having a segmentedstructure like annelids. But while Beesley likes to referto his works as a sort of life, Cohen calls the pieces“biomimetic.” “They are like living things,” he says.

A Living HomeAmatria and Beesley’s other works are architecturalprototypes, but the group intends to one day formfreestanding buildings. They envision that a structuresuch as the airy yet durable layers in Amatria couldform a permeable exterior that protects inhabitantswithout blocking out the natural world.

Of course, people would have to decide whetherthey want to make a sentient space home. “[Amatria]is very contradictory,” says Ebbinghouse. “It is very

inviting and it is also threatening. It is very familiar, butit is also alien.”

“There is a degree of science fiction in it,” saysprofessor and architect Eric Jenkins of the CatholicUniversity of America’s School of Architecture andPlanning, who helped arrange volunteers for the con-struction of Sentient Chamber, Beesley’s November2015 through May 2016 installation at the NationalAcademy of Sciences in Washington, DC. “But archi-tecture shares a great deal with science fiction.” Be-cause buildings last a long time, architects are alwaystrying to envision the needs of inhabitants far into thefuture, he says.

There are multiple ways to view Amatria’s sym-phony of sound, light, and movement. Börner’s PhDstudent, Andreas Bueckle, is developing an app thatvisualizes Amatria’s inner workings. At the unveiling,visitors reached toward infrared sensors as theywatched a prototype of the app on a tablet. Thescreen showed a stream of virtual particles pouringfrom the sensors. As a hand got closer, the actualsculpture vibrated and the particles on the screenturned fromwhite to red. “It adds a level of playfulnessbecause not only is the sculpture going to react, thevisualization is going to react too,” says Bueckle. “Ithink it is very powerful for people to see their owndata as they create it.”

The same sort of app could visualize the sensorsand actuators in the smart devices connected via theInternet, from televisions and coffee makers to ther-mostats and washing machines—all part of the much-heralded Internet of Things (IoT; see www.pnas.org/content/113/40/11059). If designers and artists un-derstood these connections, says Börner, they mightinvent new IoT setups that are radically different andlikely more desirable than what engineers and com-puter scientists would have ever envisioned.

On the day of the unveiling, small Amatria-inspiredpieces of plastic sculpture and laser-cut feather laystrewn on office desks and classroom tables in LuddyHall like fallen spider plant seedlings. Some, builtduring a summer camp, were towers that respondedto an outstretched hand with a bowing feather. Otherswere feathered clips for hair or clothing.

The goal, says Börner, is eventually to have theseAmatria offshoots communicate with the mothersculpture directly, bringing people and Amatria intomore real-time and direct contact. As this relationshipdevelops, she predicts we will learn more not onlyabout AI but also ourselves. “The AI we create willreflect who humans are,” says Börner, “just like chil-dren are a reflection of their parents.”

“It is very inviting and it is also threatening. It is veryfamiliar, but it is also alien.“

—David Ebbinghouse

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